Old Portriga and Brovira

[snuck]

So I was moseying around the local camera store in a small town in southern ontario when I spotted some out of date Tri-X in the fridge. "How much is that" I asked the clerk, staring at the 50 sheet box. 30 bucks the clerk said. Well why not, I thought, 50 sheets, thirty bucks, might as well take the risk. I, as always have been in the mind for economy. Picking up the box of film, we fell into the course of talking, and when that happened, the clerk gave me a freebee, some Brovira and Portriga paper that had been sitting around, and by the feel of the envelopes, they were probably refrigerated as well. There's not very much paper there but I was just wondering what you folks would recommend. I'm guessing that the paper is dead already, but what goes well with Ansel's old favorite? Is there some particular way that I should treat out of date paper? I want to treat it well if it is indeed still printable because... well hey it's the paper that Ansel printed on... or maybe my attention is misplaced.

Cheers

[Brian Ellis]

Put it on the floor in front of you, get down on your hands and knees, bow down to it three times, then expose and process a sheet and see what happens. If you end up with a gray blob you'll know Ansel either wasn't paying attention or didn't care.

[snuck]

Put it on the floor in front of you, get down on your hands and knees, bow down to it three times, then expose and process a sheet and see what happens. If you end up with a gray blob you'll know Ansel either wasn't paying attention or didn't care.

Now now, I'm just looking for advice on how to deal with out of date paper..

[Ralph Barker]

Ah, Princess Portriga and Brave Brovira, how we miss thee both.

I previously used plain old Dektol with Agfa Brovira and Portriga Rapid papers. While there are additives that can be used with film to reduce the effect of fogging, I'm not sure if they are similarly (marginally) effective with papers.

My suggestion would be to try a print, with some good white areas, in whatever print developer you normally use, and see how it comes out.

[John Kasaian]

The last of my Brovira drowned in the flood of '03. :-( Great stuff---I hope your treasure is still worthy of the legend!

[Philippe Gauthier]

You'll probably be fine with the film, unless it is grossly out of date. Even then, you'll probably only get a light increase in base fog. Brovira and Portriga are another thing, however. I tested both this winter, taken from a stock which has been sitting in a basement for 6-7 years. They were dead, fogged beyond any hope. Now I'm stuck with several hundred useless 11x14 sheets... Sad.

If the stock you hold was frozen, maybe you'll have better luck, but if it was only refrigerated, the stuff i unlikely to still be useable.

[Bill_1856]

The Agfa papers, when new, have a beauty and depth that I've never seen in any other papers. Unfortunately, the flip side is that they age and fog much faster than any other paper I've ever used. I wish you great luck, but "hope for the best and fear the worse," as they say in Ireland.

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

Ralph W. Lambrecht has a compilation of actual B&W flm & paper manufacturers, meaning those who actually coat the stuff regardless of under which brand they are sold.
So you have to make your original choice in this list...

http://www.darkroomagic.com/temp/Current%26Original.pdf
Strange however that MACO, Hamburg is not listed....

More useful info on Ralph W. Lambrecht's web site :
http://www.darkroomagic.com

there is a nice "download" page stuffed with several documents charts and other useful items for the large format B&W aficionado :
http://www.darkroomagic.com/Library/library.htm

[Chuck Pere]

One way to test is to cut a couple test strips. Under safelight run one through the developer, stop and fixer and the other through the fix only. No exposure. Compare to see if the developed strip is gray. I know that my frozen Insignia is dying so Agfa papers don't last forever.

[gary mulder]

portriga makes wonderfull oil print paper after fix/wash/dry